friday night at the mall

On our way to Kaitlyn and Adam’s last night, we stopped at Uptown Mall in Victoria so I could get a bubble tea. I didn’t think about it being a Friday night, and apparently it was also Black Friday, so I just anticipated parking, running into Shake It, grabbing a bubble tea, and being on my merry way.

I was dumb. First, I had some minor difficulty finding my way from the labyrinth of underground parking to Shake It. The stairs brought me up to some random point of the mall I’d never been and it took a while to find my bearings.

While I was walking around aimlessly, now among the labyrinth of shops, I was assaulted by the hordes of teenagers who were acting exactly like you might expect overstimulated groups of teens to act. They were yelling and screaming, rushing about, being dramatic about everything. I thought, “these things belong to parents somewhere.” I couldn’t imagine owning such a thing. Of course I was one of those gross greasy annoying teens myself but that doesn’t make me any more sympathetic to their plight. It actually imbues me with more loathing for them because they remind me of the shame I feel for the myriad stupid teen things I remember doing. Anyway, there was a group of four teen girls ahead of me, heading the same direction as me but also darting and zooming this way and that, screeching and bellowing randomly. I couldn’t make out anything they said but something about their behaviour was so crass and vulgar in that typical teen way — false confidence, bravado, wired, trying to impress each other and all the other people around — I just wanted them to vaporize. A group of boys around the same age walked by them and they were acting the exact same way so you can imagine how their energies fed off of each other, each group howling and screeching in hideous displays of horniness and insecurity. I wound up physically caught in an exceedingly annoying exchange between the two groups, something like “DO YOU KNOW WHERE I CAN GET A MILKSHAKE (hehehehe)” “(screech) GO TO FRANK’S (snicker snicker) FRANK IS MY UNCLE” “WHERE IS FRANK’S??” “HE’S MY UNCLE, FRANK IS MY UNCLE” Guess how I felt about being in the midst of this stupidity. I attempted to radiate my disdain as I made my way through the filthy animals and finally arrived at Shake It. I worried the banshees would follow me into Shake It but praise the abyss, they did not.

Shake It was full of Asian and Indian customers. I was surprised that more white people haven’t jumped on the bubble tea bandwagon. The fools don’t know what they’re missing. Anyway, I didn’t anticipate it would be so busy but shit, they were doing brisk business. I had to wait to order, then wait for my drink. It sucked. I finally got out of there and started walking back. There were more groups of teen boys milling about and they really put the previous teen groups to shame. These kids were seriously yelling and putting on displays. Some were yell-rapping, or attempting to, and while I’m no expert on the art of rap I could tell that these boys super sucked. My hatred peaked then.

Then I got lost trying to find my way back to the car. Had to backtrack a few times. Finally found the door down to the parkade that I came up through, but it was locked from this side so I couldn’t get back down to my car! What is the fucking rationale behind that? So I had to find a nearby road into the parkade and walk that, which I hated because there are so many terrible drivers at the mall that if one came around the corner then they would probably be going 60 km/h and smoke me. I got lucky though and made it to the car unscathed. Jenn and Alex were pissed I had taken so long. I acknowledged they were right and that I should have known better than to try to get a bubble tea from a mall location on a Friday night.

The end.

i don’t understand why VHS isn’t included in the analog resurgence movement

a lot of people love vinyl records and talk about the superior sound quality of them. i like records fine but don’t really buy that. the hisses and pops are alright and lend themselves to certain albums well but that sort of thing certainly doesn’t enhance every album, so i think it’s weird how nuts some people are about vinyl.

on the other hand, i think VHS videos share a lot of the same qualities but i like it a lot more, and don’t understand why there isn’t a dedicated following for them. i’ve never heard anyone wax on about the warm colours of VHS, the tracking that causes little lines of static every now and then, the slight warbling of the audio…it’s not only retro and awesome. to me, it actually feels more tangible, more true to life than the sterile, cold, flawless, crystal clear pictures of modern HD tv’s.

i noticed this in the last year or so while watching tons of stephen king film adaptations with dana. a few of the flicks we’ve watched have been from my collection of 80’s horror movies on VHS, like children of the corn, graveyard shift, and salem’s lot. after getting used to all the various digital formats for movies and tv now, the warmth and depth of VHS vids is amazing. i’m sure a big part of my affinity for it is nostalgia-based but that’s fine. i still like it.

it’s surprising to me that more people aren’t as pumped on VHS as i am. hell, even audio cassettes have made a modest resurgence with 80’s nostalgists, so why don’t we see a resurgence with VHS? it possesses the same analog qualities that seem to make people rabid over other formats so i just don’t get it.

and if you don’t believe me that VHS is actually awesome, do yourself a favour and go watch an old flick you like on VHS. something like gremlins or die hard or labyrinth or ghostbusters. try it and tell me it isn’t superior.

long live film.